Story of the Week The remarkable effect of a legacy.

September 3, 2026

Discover how a death led to a rebirth experience.

It may seem strange that the death of a loved one can lead to a rebirth.

Royd Tolkien is the great-grandson of JRR Tolkien – author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Royd was very close to his younger brother, Mike, even though they were very different. Mike was an extrovert and adrenaline junkie whereas Royd was much more introspective and lacked the confidence of his brother.

When Mike was diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease, Royd gave up his job as a BBC Producer to provide the daily care his brother needed. This he did for four years.

When Mike died he bequeathed Royd a bucket list of 50 tasks which would be revealed at relevant moments. There was also an instruction that the tasks should be filmed and were entrusted to the production crew to organise logistics.

As Royd approached the church where the funeral was to be held, he was informed by the priest of his first task. When Royd approaches the pulpit to deliver the eulogy, he was to stumble and fall. Royd was nervous enough without this added pressure. When the time came for the eulogy, so he stumbled which provided some light relief to a congregation consumed by grief and sufficiently relaxed Royd so that he was able to deliver his eulogy without breaking down.

As descendants of Tolkien, so many of the tasks were set in New Zealand where The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed. When Royd arrived at the airport for his flight, he was shown into a room and told his second task. He was to dress as Gandalf for the flight in the very costume used by Sir Ian McKellen along with the six-foot staff and in character to issue instructions.

 Thus, at the doorway to the plane, Royd greeted passengers with “Thou shall not pass”. Royd had to catch a connecting flight in America and whilst he was no longer in costume, he was holding the staff when approaching customs. Fortunately, the customs official was a massive Lord of the Rings fan and when told by Royd of the task was only too happy to wave him through.

Many of the tasks set in New Zealand were designed to take Royd out of his comfort zone. A colossal fear of spiders set him in a spider house and exposure to a host of different spiders. A zipwire experience over a 10,000-foot gorge would have been child’s play for his brother but not for Royd.

One task was to stand on a street corner and persuade passersby to dance with him. Whilst potentially extremely embarrassing, Royd coped by rationalising that this is just a moment in time and reflected that when caring for his brother from nine in the morning until nine at night, he got to go home. His brother could never leave his moment.

What Royd came to realise was that his brother had bequeathed a tremendous gift. The ability to face his fears, to be more confident and to live life to the full. He had a special relationship with his brother and that continued after his death.

If you would like to learn more about Royd’s bucket list, he wrote a book titled There’s a Hole in my Bucket.

If you are interested in creating your own bucket list, we have some suggestions to consider in our article Creating a Bucket List.